***Editorial pieces reflect the opinion of the newspaper staff, not the student body, administration or school faculty.***

The media tends to focus on negative news affecting the community rather than positive news. Upon hearing about Odessa American uploading a video on their website, Principal James Ramage expressed his disappointment concerning the poor view brought on the school.

It was immature and disrespectful highlighting only bad news about Permian when there’s plenty of positive news happening daily. This can effect the students of the community, incoming people, and students who were successful but not recognized.

Others don’t seem to realize that all news has an effect on the people of the community. Because of the video of a fight that occurred in the cafeteria being published online, anyone can watch. All they see is bad publicity which can lead to people thinking badly of not only the school, but the students too.

If negative news is the main focus on Permian, outsiders could view the school as a bad place, which could result in them finding another school to attend. Bad reputation can easily cause the social status to drop and give the idea that there’s an unsafe environment.

As they were publishing a story involving a few students and faculty, the OA missed out on many successful accomplishments happening that week. Ramage was disappointed that the media couldn’t rush as quickly to cover the boy’s Bi-District Championship for basketball, yet raced to post about the fight that broke out in the cafeteria. Success of hundreds of students is much more important than a 15 second fight.

Although there are important negative news that should be shared, adding more positive than negative stories, or at least keeping it fairly balanced, would be a better solution for Permian, ECISD and the community.